Hydration is one of the most important condition for both survival and everyday living. According to research, each person would require 3lts of water each day to compensate the fluid loss through perspiration and discharge. In outdoor situation, we do not get the comfort of treated fresh water flowing from the tap. The river water might look clean and clear but that doesn't mean it does not contain any water borne diseases. River is a source of life for many creature and it also a place of death. Predators would wait by the river bank to hunt. Each hunt they wold leave the carcass by the river to rot. They do not have the comfort like us to preserve unfinished meal in a fridge. Diseases of the dead creature would start to grow and flow down the river and if you happen to be at the lower end of the river, you do not even know what happen up stream. Would you still drink the unfiltered and untreated river water?
There are many ways to treat water. Filtration is the first step to get clean water but it does not mean it is treated. You will still need to treat it either chemically or by boiling which is a better option. The MSR Miniworks Water Filter had been with me for the last 10 years and till today it still serves me faithfully without failure. The construction is rather simple and thus maintaining it is a breeze. The core of the filtration is the ceramic filter which will filter and residue and bacteria till 0.2 micron. It is capable of producing 1lts of filtered water after 80 to 90 strokes.
section view
The construction is rather simple, a filter housing, handle with pump housing, ceramic filter with o-rings, hose with sinker and float and a ceramic filter gauge. The water is pump through the upper housing and flow down the filter housing, water is then filter from the outer ceramic filter into the inner filter and down below. To maintain the filter, simply remove all parts and apply MSR lubrication or cooking oil on all the o-rings. The ceramic filter can be cleaned by using a provided green scouring pad, this will remove any residue that it stuck to filter. To know if the filter is usable, use the filter gauge the filter, if the gauge goes through the filter that means is high time to replace the filter, so far I have not replace any.
MSR had design in such a way that the MSR water filters fit all the Dromedary, DromeLite Bag and including Nalgene 32oz wide mouth water bottle or similar water bottles.
The MSR MiniWorks Water Filter comes with a scouring pad, dry sack and instruction. Here I added my 5lts Dromedary Water bag. The whole filter hydration kit weighs 700g
